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November Weather Review: Back-to-back dry winters for Colorado?

By William Callahan Camera Weather Historian

Posted:
12/05/2012 08:35:17 PM MST

Updated:
12/05/2012 08:36:20 PM MST

The worst American drought in decades has deepened.

The U.S. Drought Monitor now has 60.1 percent of the lower 48 states in some form of drought. Extreme or exceptional drought, the two most severe categories, now affects more than 19 percent of the land area.

Colorado is way behind as well. The poor showing of snowfall so far has experts concerned the state may endure another lost ski season.

"There have been a bunch of years (ski seasons) with similar setups to this one, and the majority ended up dry," said Klaus Wolter, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster.

If that happens, Colorado will experience back-to-back dry winters.

A recent Denver Post story reported that from 2007 to 2011, 41 percent of Colorado home insurance claims paid out were due to large-scale events, the ninth highest share of any state.

Catastrophes caused $1.6 billion in damages in Colorado from 1990 to 1999, the article says. In 2010 and 2011 alone, they triggered $1.1 billion in damages. The totals aren't in yet, but 2012 was the worst summer on record for property-destroying wildfires.

Until now, hailstorms had posed a bigger problem. The July 2009 hailstorm, for example, generated $768 million in claims.

Drought is insidious. The Fern Lake Fire in Rocky Mountain National Park, which began Oct. 9, is still burning. A flare-up on Dec. 1 forced the evacuation of parts of Estes Park.

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Reservoirs have been drawn down, ski resort bookings are down, and the last few days of November and the first few days of December had fire-weather watches across the state because of high temperatures, low relative humidity and strong winds. Boulder is nearly 5 inches below normal in moisture for the year.

Still, Boulder has had 23 Novembers that were drier than this November. And there have been 11 with less snow. Although last month was 4 degrees warmer than normal, there have been 12 Novembers that were warmer.

The high on Nov. 21 was 73 degrees, which broke the previous record of 72, set in 1939.

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